


Upside Down

by PleasantlyWeird



Category: Tom Hardy - Fandom, Tommy Conlon - Fandom, Warrior (2011), zombies - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-01 23:41:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PleasantlyWeird/pseuds/PleasantlyWeird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy Conlon in a zombie apocalypse. But these aren't your parents zombies...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It’s been 15 days, 6 hours and 15 minutes since the world turned upside down.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Everyone who's ever read anything I've written](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Everyone+who%27s+ever+read+anything+I%27ve+written).



> Thanks to the lovely Calliope for the amazing banner <3

  
 

Tommy jerks awake behind the wheel of the pick-up truck just as the tires leave the asphalt and dig into the soft shoulder. He jerks the wheel and corrects his path. He rolls the window down to let the cold air in and slaps his face. Looking around in the fading daylight he doesn’t see anywhere he can pull over to sleep. This place is too flat, too open and the dead will find him quickly.

It’s been the same problem for the past two days and now his body isn’t giving him a choice. It’s shutting down on him, forcing the sleep cycle. Swerving around a Dodge minivan that’s sitting sideways in the road he sees a sign for a motel up ahead. If it’s a two story motel then he’s in business. The dead don’t maneuver stairs too well.

The Davy Crockett Motel is indeed two stories; the kind of place that used to rent by the hour and never asked for a photo ID. Everyone was a Smith or a Jones when checking into this type of establishment. Lord knows Tommy had been one of those kinds of guys for quite a while after the military spit him out of Camp Pendleton and their stellar prison accommodations.

Pulling into the parking lot, Tommy looks around carefully before turning off the engine. The dead were fast; not the lumbering, rasping meat sacks that popular movies and TV shows portrayed back when there was still things like that. No, the real dead ran, and they spoke. They whispered seductive promises of how much better it was to be dead and they knew your sins. Each one of them that got close enough to you was like a fucking rotting mind reader with a laundry list of everything you’d ever done wrong. The ones that had been dead the longest were better at getting right to the heart of the matter and pulling out the biggest, baddest sin of all from your heart of hearts. They knew the ones you’d never told ANYONE about and that’s why so many people had walked into the rancid arms of the zombies; willing victims ready to meet their fate because the guilt was too much.

Seeing no sign of movement, Tommy exits the cab of the F-150 quickly and grabs his rifle from the seat. Reaching into the bed of the truck he grabs his duffle bag and the silliest but most effective zombie deterrent; baby gates. The walking talking dead can get inside your brain with words, can run like an Ethiopian sprinter but they can’t figure out a baby gate. They seem to hate heights; Tommy thinks it has something to do with a lack of equilibrium. They keep their feet firmly on the ground at all times; affecting a shuffling walk and a run that has them rubbing the soles of their shoes or feet rapidly on the ground. They don’t even like to bend their knees to move. That’s how Tommy had come up with the baby gate theory and it had served him well so far.

Busting the door to the office open with a few hits of his broad shoulder, he raises the rifle to his shoulder, his stance revealing his Marine Corps weapons training and combat experience. Seeing nothing he moves silently back behind the counter and looks for the key rack.

“Two-thirteen, sounds like a good number,” he mutters to no one in particular and grabs the key off the hook. Heading out, his weapon still shouldered, he makes his way to the only staircase leading up to the second floor. Laying his supplies and gear down he brackets the baby-gate into place and blocks the stairway. Tommy grabs his gear and makes his way to his room as the sun dips down behind the tree tops.

Jostling the key in the lock, Tommy finally opens the door. As he’s entering the room he hears the low hissing of a Deader from the ground floor below.

“You let him die; you lied to him and told him everything was going to be okay…”

“Fuck you,” Tommy mutters in reply without looking back. Walking into the room, the air is stale, a mildew smell pervades but it looks clean enough and the bed will be a lot softer than the bench seat of the truck. Throwing his duffle bag onto the bed he reaches in and pulls out the single gas burner and the huge cooking pot. Boiling water for a hot bath is first on the agenda and then some food. After that, who knows, maybe a DVD on the battery operated player he lifted from the Big Lots in the last town.

Running water still abounds even after two weeks of social disintegration. Tommy knows it won’t always be the case so he’s planning on taking advantage as often as possible until then. Power had gone out on about the fifth day. Oddly enough he doesn’t really miss it all that much. The world is a much quieter place without the constant hum of electronics and technology. The loudest thing he hears these days is the engine of his truck. The most annoying sound is the constant hiss of the dead as they replay his worst secrets to him. But he’s not going to be one of the weak who stumble into the dead for a release. There is no penance worth turning yourself into one of them. And killing them isn’t as easy as the movies made it out to be. The head isn’t the target, shooting them in the brain isn’t the kill shot, there is no kill shot. The only things you can do is to avoid them or cripple them by taking out their legs. Tommy figures eventually they’ll just rot out of existence but until then life is a constant battle to keep on the move and out of reach of the things he fears becoming. Because once the dead got their hands on you there was almost no chance of escape.

 

The living to dead ratio is becoming more unbalanced by the day. In the beginning it was mass hysteria and people died out of stupidity. When the dead started rising up out of the ground, walking out of the morgues and funeral homes humanity freaked the fuck out, of course, and there was chaos everywhere. Tommy had been in Pittsburgh at the time, dealing with his sick father. He hadn’t known the old man was already dealing with cancer at Sparta but afterwards the effects had made themselves known rapidly. There had been a time in his life when Tommy would have relished raising a gun in Paddy Conlon’s face and pulling the trigger. He hadn’t felt that way two days after the beginning of the collapse when his father had passed away and had immediately risen up out of the bed as one of Them.

Paddy’s eyes had been rimmed in red because the dead leak blood from every orifice. Sometimes it’s the only way you can tell the fresh ones from a living person. He’d pointed his finger at Tommy and in a hissing voice he’d told him that if it hadn’t been for him and Brendan, his life wouldn’t have gone the way that it eventually did. Tommy had cried as he’d lifted Pops double barreled shotgun up and shot him in the face. But losing most of his head hadn’t stopped the cadence of zombie Paddy’s accusations, the voice wasn’t a sound wave carried to Tommy’s ear but a thought sent directly to his head.

Tommy had locked his reanimated father in the bedroom and had packed everything he could find in the house that might be useful in his father’s rust colored sedan. That had been just a little over two weeks ago. He’d ditched the sedan after he’d blown a head gasket and had taken the brand new truck off of a lot in Johnson City, Tennessee. It had been his mode of transportation since.

The water in the pot is boiling and Tommy mixes it in with the cold water he’d already run in the tub. The air in the small bathtub turns steamy quickly and Tommy strips and eases down into the water, sighing as the heat starts to undo the knots in his muscles. There were few luxuries left in this life, this strange world where the dead hold you down and smother you until you became one of them, but a hot bath goes a long way in making things seem normal for a little while.

Tommy closes his eyes; the Coleman lamp is lit next to the bed and the soft glow of barely reaches into the closet sized bathroom. His eyelids grow heavy but he knows he can’t afford to fall asleep in the bathtub. There are no more doctors and to get a cold could mean death. Death means turning into one of them. He also knows he doesn’t want to sleep without some chemical intervention to help stave off the dreams of what he found in his brother Brendan’s house in Philly.

The water is chilling fast so he decides that bath time is over. Standing and grabbing the dusty but clean towel off of the wall rack he dries off and ties the towel around his waist. Walking into the bedroom he grabs the portable DVD player off of the bureau and turns it on. Reaching into his bag he pulls out a handful of movies and chooses The Dark Knight Rises and his bottle of pills. He’s never been a Batman fan but he really likes Bane fucking shit up. Pressing play, he sets it gently on the bedside table and drops the towel. He takes one tablet out of the bottle and crushes it between his teeth, grimacing at the bitter taste of it. Turning down the covers, he decides to skip food for now and go straight to bed. The sheets are cold as he slides in. He doesn’t make it past Catwoman stealing Bruce Wayne’s mother’s pearls before he slides into a dreamless oblivion.


	2. When hell is full

Waking up was never a happy thing in this world turned upside down. It always takes reality a few minutes to set in. It takes time for the sleeping pill fog to lift and then slowly the realization that the world isn’t and never will be the same sets in. It always takes the piss right out of Tommy.

Wiping his eyes, he looks out the open curtains into the bright sunlight. It all looks so normal right now, here behind glass without a full view from the second floor of this fleabag hotle. The dead can’t send their hateful thoughts through the walls and Tommy has half a mind to stay here another night. But he knows he can’t, the longer he’s in one place the more the dead will congregate. It’s like they can sense someone with a pulse and they call to one another to come and try to take anyone still breathing down; to suffocate them under a blanket of their stinking dead meat. Tommy hops out of bed and dresses in a clean set of clothes. He leaves the dirty ones in the floor. He never wears the same clothes twice anymore. The next town will always have a store that he can pilfer more apparel from; it saves him from doing laundry. He makes quick work of packing up; he has a certain way he always puts things into the duffel to maintain order. This routine helps him keep his sanity and keeps him moving forward.

Stepping outside he looks around for the enemy and sees nothing. It’s odd because he spotted the one outside the hotel the night before. He’s never known one to move away in the night before, instead they’ve always waited outside with the patience of Job for him to re-emerge so they could spit their hatred at him and eventually try to attack. Readying the baseball bat he keeps handy anyway, he descends the stairs and peeks around the corner. Still seeing nothing he lifts the baby gate and heads to the truck with his gear. A few minutes later he’s loaded up and headed down the road.

Tommy can’t admit to himself that he is headed to Texas. To do so would be to acknowledge that he still had hope that Pilar and the kids were ok. To admit hope is to allow it to invade everything and there is no room for hope anymore. To hope is to willfully experience the insanity of loss all over again and that’s not something Tommy is willing to do.

The path he drives is crooked, meandering, and sideways. Most major roads are blocked with cars. The mass exodus out of every major city was to be expected; the larger the living population the larger the dead hordes that invaded. Everyone wanted to get out of the big cities and a predictable traffic jams ensued; just like in every major doomsday movie.

While the cities are dangerous because of the walking dead, the countryside is even less friendly but in a different way. Those people don’t care for trespassers and would just as soon shoot you as to look at you. So Tommy has been straddling a fine line, avoiding deaders and survivors as much as possible. He tends to look for towns that have a small town center and a sprawling urban area. The stores there seem to be less looted and he runs into fewer of both kinds of people, breathing and not. He’s seen his share of survivors who’d wanted to tag along, who’d wanted his help. Women who were willing to trade sex for his protection, even some men who’d been willing to do the same. Tommy learned long ago, way before the world went insane, that he had no business trying to keep anyone but himself safe so he always turns them down and keeps moving.

The past 17 days have been a lesson in loneliness and sometimes he’s tempted to take a passenger but always decides it’s for the best if he doesn’t. He’s better off alone and being responsible for only himself for now. Once he finds Pilar and the kids, or Brendan and the kids… Pulling over to the side of the road he takes out his cell phone and calls his brother. As of now, satellites are still working and even though he knows there will be no answer he calls once a day anyway.

“Hi this is Brendan, I can’t answer the phone right now…”

Tommy hangs up before the message ends and automated voice mail beeps. He knows his brother is probably dead, he recognizes that even if he isn’t the chances of them finding each other is slim to none. He knows that soon communication satellites will crash to the ground and that Brendan’s cell phone probably isn’t even ringing on the other end. He just likes hearing the sound of Brendan’s voice while he can. It’s comforting in a fucked up way that Tommy can’t even begin to wrap his head around.

Grabbing the Atlas from the passenger seat Tommy starts planning a route to get him out of Tennessee and into Georgia. He figures there will be more side roads that will be less congested and maybe he’ll be able to make some headway if he travels further south and then west.

His stomach growls and he realizes he’d skipped dinner last night and breakfast this morning. Reaching into the glove box he pulls out a package of chocolate fudge pop tarts and opens them with his teeth while looking at the map. The next town he plans on stopping in is called Hixson and if he doesn’t hit any wrecks or jam ups he can make it there well before sundown. Experience tells him that this isn’t going to be the case. He’s always hoping he runs into a Range Rover dealership. If he had one of those all-terrain mother fuckers pretty much nothing would stand in his way.

Finishing the pop tarts he grabs a water bottle from the cup holder and downs it in one long drink. Pulling his aviator shades down from the visor he puts them on and heads back onto the road. He pops in a Rage Against the Machine cd and puts his foot down hard on the gas pedal. The path ahead is clear and the day is warm. He’s got two full tanks thanks to the last stop he made and some canned roast beef to eat on crackers for lunch.

His mind wanders back to Pilar and the kids. He had phoned as soon as the shit hit the fan but her number had been busy. He’d never gotten through. He’d been unable to leave until Paddy was gone; his sense of duty to his father had been overwhelming which was funny in light of the kind of father he had been for most of Tommy’s life.

Pilar was most likely dead and if he came across her in a reanimated state she would no doubt accuse him of being the reason she died a widow. The kids would point their tiny undead fingers at him and cry out that they’d lost their father because of him. Tommy shakes his head to clear his thoughts. He reaches into the glove box to grab another package of pop tarts and then seeing someone in the middle of the road, he slams on the brakes as he sits upright, swerving to avoid the figure .

The truck comes to a halt sideways and Tommy clutches the wheel, willing his hands to stop shaking. He turns and looks back and sees that the person, who looks female, hasn’t moved. He can’t be sure if it’s a deader or not. He sees more figures coming out of the tree line, and recognizes that they ARE dead by their shuffling feet. They’re all making their way towards the brunette in the middle of the road. This tells Tommy that she is NOT one of them. He honks his horn and she doesn’t react at all. He rolls down his window and yells, “Hey, lady!” She doesn’t turn her head; she just stands there, her shoulders shaking. He can hear the faint sounds of her sobs and he yells again.

“Hey, they’re coming! Run!”

The woman turns her head towards him and he sees her bright blue eyes acknowledge him. He’s never seen eyes that color, never seen such sadness and abject despair in an expression before. The dead are closing in on her, gaining speed as they near her unmoving body. She holds her arms up as if to welcome them. Tommy makes a split second decision, throwing the truck into reverse and pulling alongside the woman. She looks at him, her face becoming frightened as he throws open his door and pulls her in, across his lap, and them pushing her into the passenger seat as he floors the truck.

“For fucks sake!” He yells, “what the hell is wrong with you? You just gonna let them deaders take you out? Crazy bitch!” He shakes his head, and smacks his hands hard on the steering wheel to release some of the stress he’s feeling.

The woman doesn’t say anything, just sobs quietly as she looks out the windshield. Tommy glances over at her, wishing she would say anything at all, even if it’s just to tell him to fuck off.

“What’s your name?” He asks, making his voice gentler.

The woman turns her striking blue eyes towards him, her tear stained face pitiful, and says “Molly.”

“What’s your story, Molly? Why were you just standing there? You’ve made it over two weeks…”

“I was trying to get you to hit me with your truck.”

“Why?” Tommy asks, incredulous even with the state of things as they were.

“Because I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to exist anymore.”

“If I woulda hit you, you would’ve just become one of them things you know.”

Molly doesn’t answer; instead she turns her entire body away from Tommy and cries silently. He can tell she’s still sobbing because of the way her shoulders shake. He’s never been one who’s easily comforted someone who’s hurting; emotionally or physically. He starts to reach across the seat a couple of times and touch her shoulder but he retracts his hand each time. Why did he stop for her? Why her and not all the others who had begged him for help, for protection. He finds one woman who is ready to accept death and whatever comes after, one who doesn’t want his help and she’s the one he takes in. Fucking typical…

“Kids don’t come back, have you noticed?” Molly’s voice is flat, her tone low. At first he’s not even sure she said anything; instead thinking he heard it inside his own mind. “Adults, those whose souls are stained with sin; they all come back, but not the kids. All the children died on the day the world went insane and not one of them came back.”

“I wasn’t around any kids… what, whatchu mean they all died on the same day?” Tommy feels a shiver work its way up his spine, he’s not sure if he wants to know what she’s about to tell him or not.

“All the innocents, the little babies and children went to heaven when the dead started to walk the earth. My babies, my twins, they were gone that morning. Their bodies were there but their souls were already gone.” She cries again and slumps against the window. “I held them until…” but she stops, the pain of her memories evident in her voice. He doesn’t push her to tell him anymore.

If what she says is true then that’s some biblical, end-of-time shit and Tommy can’t even think about that. But it’s true that he’s yet to see a dead child walking around with the rest of them.

“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead …” Molly whispers and the shiver makes its way violently up Tommy’s back.


	3. Dually

The rest of the ride to Hixson is uneventful and quiet; too quiet for Tommy’s liking. He doesn’t play music because he wants to hear Molly if she talks, but Molly never says a word.

The road stays clear of any major car jam ups and he sees relatively little dead wandering about. Tommy actually feels comfortable enough to crack his window a little. The air that comes in is warm for this October day and he’s suddenly aware of the brilliant colors of the trees. Oranges, russets and burgundy’s blaze brilliantly from the tree limbs in the bright sunlight. Thinking back to Pittsburgh, a city of factories, everything was always gray; there never was anything close to this to be seen there. The smell of changing leaves wafts in on the wind and he breathes deeply, feeling oddly content in this moment. Things could almost be normal if one could step outside of this scene and watch.

A light snore comes from his passenger and he smiles to himself. At least she’s resting; maybe she’ll be in a better frame of mind when she wakes up. He doubts it, really. He’s not sure how anyone could cope with losing a child, let alone two at the same time. He’d never wanted kids of his own. He never had been much of an uncle to his own nieces or to Pilar and Manny’s kids. Sometimes he thought that he’d been born without that essential thing that made someone a good caretaker for children. Then sometimes he wondered if Paddy had beaten that part of him into oblivion before he’d ever gotten the chance for it to develop normally inside of him.

His thoughts wander to Brendan and his family as they often do. There had been so much blood inside the Conlon house in Philly that he’d gone numb from the sight of it. He hadn’t allowed even a sliver of hope in his mind that it wasn’t a sure sign that Brendan and his family were gone. But he hadn’t thought the deaders were the ones responsible. The Dead don’t maim, they don’t eat flesh; they suffocate you or they goad you into taking your own life.  It was probably looters, opportunists that killed his brother’s family; end of the world-type anarchists that had done his flesh and blood in.

“JESSIE!” The scream comes from Molly, the sound ragged and hoarse, and she sits upright, reaching her hands out to whatever she’s seeing behind her closed eyes. Tommy swerves the truck gently to the side of the road and shifts into park. He puts his hands on Molly’s shoulders in an attempt to calm her down.

“Molly, MOLLY!” He says, shaking her lightly, she opens her eyes and looks around bewildered, obviously not remembering where she is. Her eyes come to rest on Tommy and he shakes his head sadly at her, knowing that Jessie must have been one of her children.

Molly’s face crumples and she falls into Tommy’s arms, sobbing and inconsolable.

“Shhhh, I’m here…” Tommy whispers into her hair as she shakes; the sobs become whimpers and then she goes quiet. Tommy had never been a person with a filter, if he was thinking it he was saying it and this moment was no exception. “Molly, sweetheart. Isn’t it better that the babies aren’t here to see this? I can’t help but believe that they’re in a better place than this shithole now…”

Molly leans back and looks up at him, her expression pained, her eyes still pouring tears like rain. “I know you’re right… but I ache for them… I remember how warm they were in my arms, how it felt to hold them, kiss them and tell them that I loved them. I just ache to feel them again…”

Tommy couldn’t truly identify with the way she described the ache but he understood. How long had it been since he’d held someone close, felt that bond. Molly was looking at him, staring as if she expected him to say something. The urge to lean down and kiss her was strong and he felt himself licking his lips in anticipation of his mouth meeting hers.

Hands slap at the window and Tommy jumps; Molly screams and hides her face.

A Deader is at the driver’s window looking in; his milky white eyes stare sightlessly at Tommy and without moving his mouth he starts spitting his vitriol into Tommy’s mind.

_You weren’t there for Manny. You abandoned your own brother. Your father is burning in hell because you never truly forgave him…_

Tommy reaches into the glove box and pulls out the Glock he’d pilfered from a pawn shop in Pittsburgh right after the shit had hit the fan. Rolling down the window just enough to level the barrel with the Deaders forehead he presses the gun into the gray, dead skin.

“Go fuck yourself,” he mutters angrily and pulls the trigger. The spray of congealed blood and rotten gray matter spatters in a fan pattern behind the zombie as it crumples. Rolling the window back up, Tommy slams the truck into gear and pulls back onto the roadway. The moment of whatever it was between Molly and him is gone and he’s thankful. What good could ever come out of it? This new world wasn’t the place to find romance or even just to fuck the pain away. Emotions and feelings would only get you killed.

“So we’re gonna have to stop soon and look for gas,” Tommy says, his tone strictly business. “I’ll be quick; I’ve got this shit down to a science. I want you to stay in the truck, keep your head down and be still. Keep time… and if you hear anything or I don’t come back in a reasonable amount of time I want you to go. There are supplies and guns in the bed of the truck… just go, keep on this road. You hear me?”

Molly doesn’t answer; her gaze never strays from the road ahead of them, her expression is dead. Something about the way she looks stirs anxiety inside of Tommy but he chalks it up to just having had the shit scared out of him. The next thirty something miles pass in silence; Tommy can’t be sure that Molly even blinks.

Stopping in a residential area of the next small town, Tommy quickly scouts for vehicles that look undisturbed. Spotting a dually truck that he’s sure has two gas tanks, Tommy pulls behind it and turns to Molly.

“This looks good, remember what I said. Anything happens I want you to drive as far as you can. Don’t worry about me, yeah?”

Molly sits in silence, not even acknowledging that she’d been spoken to. Tommy closes the door and grabs one of the nearly ten boomboxes out of the bed of the truck. Jogging with it to the far end of the street he presses play and then runs back towards the truck. D’yer Maker blares out of the speakers and Tommy’s feet fall in time with Robert Plant as he sings to someone that they don’t have to go.

Reaching the dually truck he tries the door and is pleased to find it unlocked. He reaches in and pops both gas doors with the latches on the floor. As he reaches into the back of his own truck for the siphoning hose and the gas can he sees Molly fumbling in the dash for something. As he moves forward and looks into the cab he sees her place the barrel of the Glock in her mouth and pull the trigger. In an explosion of red, everything that was inside of her head is sprayed against the back window. He body convulses twice and then stills as the gun falls out of her hand and slides into the floorboard.

“NOOOO!” He screams and punches the side of his truck. “FUCK! Molly you fucking coward!” He screams hoarsely, swinging at the air now like there’s an invisible opponent in front of him. Hot tears of frustration run down his face and then he crouches in the middle of the street. His hands cover his head as if he’s protecting himself from blows and in a way he is. As tough as he might be on the outside, inside he’ll forever be a scared 14 year old kid left to the wilds of the world alone.

He screams again, his voice giving out as he rids himself of all the anguish he can. The he’s pushing the helplessness out of his mind, blocking out the feelings; he’s back to business. Quickly loading everything out of the bed of his old truck and into the duelly. He doesn’t look at Molly’s corpse as he empties the cab, breathes through his mouth so that the rusty, salty, coppery smell of her blood doesn’t invade his nose.

Making fast work of hotwiring the new ride, he hops in the truck and blazes a path out of the neighborhood. He doesn’t look back.


End file.
